This disclosure relates to a dispensing nozzle. Many nozzles have been designed, developed, patented, and used in the past, that incorporate the usual operating components, such as poppet valves, hand lever assemblies, automatic shutoff components, and various spout designs, and many of such prior developments have been undertaken by the assignee of the current disclosure herein, who has been in the business of manufacturing and marketing dispensing nozzles for many, many years. For example, the assignee's prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,451, upon a dispensing nozzle improvement, in its main embodiment, shows the balanced pressure type of nozzle, that does incorporate a poppet valve, an automatic shutoff and its diaphragm assembly, including an operating hand lever system, to provide for dispensing of fuel when the nozzle has been conveniently applied to the fill pipe of a gasoline tank for automobiles, and other machines. The United States patent to the same assignee, U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,115, shows a related style of poppet valve, and a shutoff assembly, for a nozzle, as can be noted. Most of these earlier nozzles, and the various components as identified that are fitted into their structure, require a complete assembly of these components for the nozzle, from a myriad of individual parts, which must be assembled into the nozzle body, during constructing of the nozzle. Or, if several of these components need servicing or cleaning in a well used fuel nozzle, these components must be individually removed, all the parts disassembled, in order to provide for servicing of the subject nozzle. This not only requires a service person of high engineering and mechanical skill, but is very time consuming to service such a used nozzle, frequently requiring a replacement of the entire dispensing nozzle, and returning the used nozzle back to the manufacturing plant, for rebuilding. Thus, one of the primary objects of the current disclosure is to provide for a modularization of select of these components for a nozzle, so that the service person, even in the field, can simply remove a poppet modularized component, or an automatic diaphragm operated shutoff component, and simply replace it with a modularized new component, directly in the field, in a minimum of time, to substantially reduce the complexity of the nozzle handling, and to significantly reduce the amount of time involved in servicing such a product.
The assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,133, shows another dispensing nozzle, and how all of the individual parts that make up the operating components for the shown nozzle, such as the poppet valve 20, and the automatic shutoff assembly 70, are located within the nozzle structure, as shown assembled. The assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 6,394,139 shows how an elliptical expansion plug has been applied to a universal nozzle casting body, so as to facilitate its servicing when it is taken apart, or even when the nozzle is initially assembled, during its building. Finally, the assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 6,585,014 shows an easy opening dispensing nozzle, but more specifically pertains to a novel lever assembly that regulates the flow of the fuel through the nozzle.
The current disclosure is designed to significantly improve upon the structure of the various components that make up the assembled dispensing nozzle, and more particularly to modularize the various operative components, so that they can be easily removed from the nozzle, replaced with a new like modular component, to greatly facilitate and reduce the amount of time involved in servicing of a dispensing nozzle in the field.